Customers in the globalized, digital world want to buy more than just a product – they’re searching for a long-term solution. With the right customer-centric IT strategy, you put customer experience at the center of your business model and control the success of your brand.

It is no longer enough for manufacturers to offer outstanding products at a competitive price. To be prepared for the digital future, it’s not products that should be the main focus of your business model, but the customer and their demands, suggestions, and problems. In times of globalization and the growing digital economy, the customer now desires much more than just a product; they want a complete solution. And this should be part of the entire customer experience. For future business models, this means moving away from being purely a manufacturer and toward becoming a complete service provider.

This doesn’t have to be as complex as it might sound. Offering products “as a service” or renting machines instead of only selling them is a relatively simple step companies can take. After all, trends such as the sharing economy don’t stop at the B2B sector. Technologies including the internet of things and machine learning are indispensable in this service approach – and so is a customer-centric IT strategy.

In particular, an IT strategy is essential when time pressures are increasing but budgets are decreasing and IT staff are scarce. The right technology can relieve these stresses if implemented in the right way, according to new demands. Figures show companies have realized the potential: Experts at Gartner estimate that around 3.7 trillion US dollars have been invested by companies worldwide in IT this year. Above all, investments in artificial intelligence should generate new business models with a value of 2.9 trillion US dollars and 6.2 billion hours of work productivity by 2021.

Technology Should be Both Stable and Agile

These developments are changing the role of IT. Where, for a long time, stability of an application and low costs were key, technology now needs to be flexible, fast, and innovative. According to Gartner, to be successful in business you need to be “bimodal” with both aspects in focus. There are three key elements to achieving this: specialized teams within your IT department, separate organizational units outside of the company, and a “digital core” of all products, processes, and services. Even if Gartner’s strategy is disputed by some, more than a third of all businesses already follow a bimodal IT approach to ensure business success.

The transformation of technology from cost driver to value-adding asset offers IT departments the chance to take on new roles and responsibilities. IT departments are switching from a role of support at your business to becoming a strategic partner for your other departments. But how can your IT department meet these requirements? A lack of skilled professionals is affecting IT departments worldwide. There is a need for approximately 40,000 experts in Germany alone.

In this new world, success is based not on what CIOs build, but on the services they integrate. The IT organization will move from manufacturer to buyer, and the CIO will become an expert orchestrator of services.

External Service Providers Support CIOs in Their Changing Role

In order for IT departments to concentrate on their new customer-centric IT strategy, they need to be relieved of back-end processes such as data protection and updates. For this reason, many businesses are looking to external service providers, storage services in the cloud, or both. Managed services offer a company the precise degree of standardization to keep costs and complexity to a minimum. In addition, they offer exactly the right amount of individualization needed to satisfy the customer. With the help of external specialists, a company’s IT is always up to date and employees have the time to concentrate on core business – and offering the best-possible customer experience. This is how important customer-centric IT is in influencing the overall success of a company.

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